


The Uneasy Companion

by Gairid



Series: After The Fall [2]
Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Disillusionment, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-12 22:51:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5684035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gairid/pseuds/Gairid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis and Armand have an uneasy, strange ongoing conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Dawn of Comprehension

**Author's Note:**

> Part Two of the series _After The Fall_ , Tales of Louis and Armand's wanderings after Claudia's destruction and the burning of the Théâtre des Vampires in the Temple du Boulevard in Paris.
> 
> Timeframe: Early 20th century, New York City.

He came up the walk, his tread uncharacteristically heavy and uneven. I heard the hesitant scrabble of the key in the lock and then the door swung open followed by a gust of icy wind and a swirl of snow. Louis stood in the doorway swaying slightly, his face in shadow, his angular, narrow form silhouetted by the streetlamp behind him. There was a menacing air about him that pricked at my senses in a way that was darkly exciting.

Crossing the room and moving into the circle of light cast by the lamp, his green eyes passed over me as though I were part of the room furnishings. There was genuine surprise on his face when I spoke his name in greeting and he gave a slow cat-like blink that at last animated his features. He hung his long woolen coat on the coat tree by the door; melting snowflakes sparkled in the dark net of his hair.

“Another snowfall. I’m glad of it. The dirty sidewalks are much improved,” he said, toeing off his boots. He smelled of clean wind and the blood of his very recent victim and as I watched him tug the tight kid gloves from his elegant hands I became sick with longing for him. He passed in front of me and bent to stir the fire, sighing when the welcome heat reached him. A moment later he straightened and came to sit beside me. I offered him the blanket I had across my lap and after a brief hesitation, he drew one foot up beneath his lean thigh and pulled the blanket up.

“You seem tense, Armand. Why is that?” His tone was soft yet I heard a dangerous lilt lurking beneath which bestirred me further. I can plumb his thoughts but lately, he has learned obfuscation, a thing that is nearly as effective as being able to shield one’s mind entirely. When I make such a foray, he layers his thoughts with an indifferent malice that I find most unpleasant. Better to be teased by his beauty; better not to know what he’s thinking.

“Your games make me tense.” I cried, suddenly exhausted.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he said silkily, flicking a fang with his tongue.

I know very little about him, I thought with some shame. I have been with him now for decades but he has allowed only a very little of who he really is show through his grief and his unsettling, seething anger. At this moment his gaze was particularly penetrating and somehow amused. As I said—he has slowly become adept at clouding his mind enough to make it difficult for me to read him clearly. I can hardly blame him; such intrusions are the root of his anger. How much could he pluck from my mind in these moments when I fail to control myself? Does he glimpse my blinding need? The despair that washes over me at his indifference?

“I don’t play games. You should know that by now, Armand,” he murmured. His voice was deceptively soothing.

“It doesn’t matter what you choose to name it, does it?” I had myself under control now and games, after all, are something I am utterly familiar with. “Something has happened, though I don’t know what. Will you tell me?”

He shrugged and this gesture in him seemed out of place, almost vulgar. “It’s nothing I can put my finger on. Just a stirring of something that I cannot place. It’s set my teeth on edge.”

His sigh was an eloquent blend of frustrated curiosity and puzzlement. There was movement beneath the blanket. His hand found my leg and he began stroking my thigh firmly. The control I thought I’d gained proved shaky at best: I wanted to push him away, but the image of his hands when he’d removed his gloves earlier was strong in my mind. I decided instead to play his game. No doubt he heard the thrumming of my heart and surprisingly he seemed to respond, removing his hand and then slipping his arm about my shoulders to draw me closer. “Tell me about this feeling. Is it threatening?” I asked.

“Not so far as I can tell, but who can say? It’s a tickle in my mind, it comes and goes. I notice it most at the edge of sleep.” He sounded pensive and his hand crept up to tangle absently in my hair. This did not have the feel of a game, as though he’d dropped that for now in favor of trying to understand the feeling he was speaking of. Inexplicably, this shift served to put me on high alert though nothing in his demeanor indicated danger or fear and nothing of what he described has come through to me in any way.

“A dream, perhaps?”

He did not answer immediately and again I was sorely tempted to take a look into his head. I refrained because he knows sometimes…maybe all the time and I didn’t wish to break this tenuous connection.

“Sometimes it has the feel of a dream,” he conceded, “...one of the type that is inexplicable when you think about it in waking hours. It does not have the aspect of grounded imagery except in a maddening, unformed manner.” He paused and I remained quiet as he considered his words. His thumb caressed the nape of my neck. “It does not always occur when I am sleeping or even close to it. Tonight I noticed it as I was hunting, and even as I fed, this…tickle, feeling…whatever it can be called—it was there, distant but somehow eager. The frustration lies in being unable to identify what it is or what it means.” He turned his head to look at me. “I should know. Something in me tells me I should know.”

I spoke without thinking. It was probably the acknowledgment I felt when he looked at me, really looked at me without coldness or scorn or the notes of anger and grief in his eyes. “If you think you should know, then you probably already do. You just need to wait for it to become clear.”

His eyes widened in surprise at the candor he clearly recognized and I felt a stab of regret. If I’d been honest with him from the beginning and foregone the manipulation that I routinely used to get my way would things have been different?

Possibly. Probably. What’s the use of thinking such things at this late date? No use at all. None. The regret was overtaken with distant grief overlaid with a debilitating desperation. Love me. Please. Just love me. He heard none of this. My mind was clamped shut and though he may catch a stray thought from me from time to time, when I am withholding it not possible. Nonetheless, he was watching me with a curiosity he had not shown in long years. I forget sometimes that he possesses an innate intuition that serves him well and he follows it closely.

“Sometimes your face betrays you, Armand,” he said carefully. “And I am reminded of the being I thought would tear away the darkness.”

His words left me shaken for a space of minutes. What had he gleaned? By this time I was aware that on occasion he had it in him to be deliberately cruel, but this did not have the feel of those moments. I gathered myself. “I recall that we both shared that hope. Once.”

There was only a tightening of the skin between his brows to indicate that I’d landed an unintended blow with my defensive answer; his words had surprised it out of me. He’d offered a slender olive branch, so naturally I had to snap it in two and toss it back at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” The words sounded hollow in my own ears; how must they have sounded to him? “The feeling you are describing-- might it be another of our kind attempting to reach you in some way? Does it feel…specific to you?”

He blinked then, and the distance in his eyes cleared to something that resembled a sudden understanding. He turned to look forward again, focusing on the window that looked out across to the park. Sleet ticked on the glass.

“Specific,” he murmured, not so much as an answer but as a word he had not considered. The fingers he’d twined in my hair earlier resumed the abstracted movement that I’d stilled with my earlier comment. I shifted my position and leaned my head against his arm. His hand left the back of my neck and he moved his arm about my shoulders again. “Yes. I think it might be, though there is an odd distance to it, in spite of a distinct sense of familiarity.” He turned his head and pushed his nose into my hair, an intimacy he had not shown in many years. I didn’t want to believe that there was nothing behind it beyond simple loneliness and the need for contact that did not end in death, yet what else could it be? I tried to think about what it was that he was experiencing, but his physical immediacy, the warmth of his blood-infused skin was distracting in the extreme.

“You are like Lestat was,” Louis said into my ear. “You keep your secrets close as he did. You hide yourself beneath so many layers I wonder if there is anything real left. You were the glass I thought I would look through to see things with new clarity. I did not understand that the glass was reflective, a mirror, and all I saw was what I thought I wanted.

Another lance of pain followed by a tiny dart of silvery fear, a thing that at last distracted me from his mouth near my ear, his breath stirring my hair. How had he managed that? I had not felt fear in a very long time. How extraordinary. His lips pressed against the skin behind my ear but I was focused now and it occurred to me that he knew, or suspected that Lestat had not perished all those years ago. The fear was born from the deception I had practiced upon him and I was suddenly suffused with a flood of rage because of it.

He seemed not to notice the stiffness in my shoulders; his movements became languid and quiescent and I pushed him roughly onto his back, straddling his hips and pinning his arms to the cushions. I could read nothing from the green glitter in his eyes. He accepted and returned my savage kisses, followed me willingly enough to the bedroom and moved beneath me with needful desperation, reaching for something I knew I could never give him. I hated him. I loved him, and oh, his keening was music and I could, at least, take that from him and feast on it.

Exhausted, he did not bother to leave the bed as the dawn approached, only pulled the bedclothes up and fell into the death sleep a good thirty minutes before I did. Watching Louis sleep was another feast and I thought how simple it would be for me to destroy him. I should have been appalled, but it was just a thought, one among many. Perhaps he was right and there really was nothing left of whoever I had once been. The pull of the death sleep was claiming me at last and I lay down with my head on his shoulder, taking a liberty that he would likely ignore upon waking. “You know.” I whispered thickly before I fell, drowning to the dawn

TBC - Next: A Confluence of Truths


	2. A Confluence of Truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuing on with Armand and Louis's story - New York City in the early part of the twentieth century. A long held secret comes to the fore.

****

Chapter Two

A Confluence of Truths

**(Louis)**

Upon awaking, I remained still for a long while listening to the slight roar of heat being drawn up the flue. The room was warm and in the quiet, I waited for the little touch, the tickle at the edge of my mind, wondering if, in anticipating it, I might then invite some further elucidation. Nothing happened and with an inward sigh, I rolled to my back. Armand was watching me from across the room, seated in a wing chair by the hearth, The deep auburn notes in his hair echoed the firelight glow; his dark eyes were tranquil.

Armand is never discomfited by silences, no matter how prolonged and this sits well with me-I have never felt the need for small talk. This evening there was an indefinable air of expectation about him and it pushed me somewhat closer to wakefulness. Images licked at the edges of my mind, very much like the experiences I’d been speaking of the evening before, I realized. I tried to make sense of this small revelation but my thinking was sluggish and muddled and somehow far off and the connection I was looking for proved maddeningly elusive.

“I would appreciate it, Armand, if you would please afford me a little privacy.” I said tonelessly as I sat up. My head swam and it was then I recalled that Armand had gone ahead and taken blood from me; quite a lot if my current weakness was any indication.

“I did indeed partake, _caro_ , and in all ways. You never fail to surprise me, Louis,” he said with no small amount of satisfaction. “Such stamina! You offered yourself-- surely you did not think I would refuse?” 

He ignored my remark regarding my privacy altogether, plucking at his sleeve to remove some infinitesimal speck of lint. I made no answer, for to do so would invite more descriptives. Offered? It was possible, I supposed. I didn’t recall offering, but what was to stop him whether I did or not? I hardly knew what I was thinking or doing some nights. Whether this was because of my erratic feeding habits or mental interference on his part, I was not always able to discern.

“You could be going mad,” he offered in reasonable tones. He smiled impishly.

“A rude observation, but entirely possible,” I said absently. This was, I knew, his idea of humor. I got to my feet and moved to the armoire in order to dress. The thirst had awakened, a ravening beast that screamed through my depleted veins and arteries, pale nerves begging for surcease from the pain thus engendered. It was like a clawed hand in my very heart, scrabbling and squeezing. I was in no shape to engage with him or to try and navigate whatever his current line of thinking might be leading; at the best of times I was hard-pressed to understand his motivations.

Once dressed, I turned to leave the room, but he stayed my exit, his hand firm on my shoulder. His voice was soft, beguiling and seductive--another complete turn-around from his mood the evening before. “If you would just take from me, Louis, you would not need to hunt.”

And what sort of answer could I make to this statement? Yes, please, Armand, it’s what I have longed for all this time? An apologetic refusal? Scorn? Should I tell him that I knew…that I know…what? I rolled my shoulder and slipped from beneath his hand. “I will not be long,” I said.

Once outside, with the door firmly latched behind me, I stood for a moment surveying the street, turning up the collar of my coat against the frigid blast. “Wake up, Louis, you fool,” I murmured into the teeth of the wind. “Wake up and figure it out.” I stepped out from the slight shelter of the alcove and walked toward the enclosed park in the square.

The streets were all but deserted but this is not a deterrent for one of us on the hunt. My time with Armand was arguably not in the best interests of either of us for the most part, but there had been some benefits: he had taught me several things--such as how to make use of vampiric speed and strength and agility so remarkable it was akin to flying. If I wanted to I could step off the top of a six-story building and land lightly on my feet, a thing I found at once exhilarating and terrifying. In all my time with Lestat I had no idea that these things were possible. The enhanced strength I’d learned about on my own very early on but the extent of it had eluded me. I still have not tested these boundaries; to do so was an exercise in alienation, as though having to kill a human being or two every night were not proof enough of what monstrosities we were.

Armand had no such compunctions about killing; he did not so much hunt as draw his victims to him, searching the minds of those mortals nearby and more often than not finding one who welcomed him in their own way, at least most of the time. I think he was somewhat disconcerted over my normal habit of taking whatever mortal happened across my path when I was thirsting. The idea that Armand found it so disconcerting was what pushed me toward hunting as Lestat, vexed with me past all patience, had tried to instruct me so long ago.

_“Take the evil-doers, Louis. Perhaps that will assuage your precious guilt. God knows there are more than enough of them in this city!”_

I shook my head against Lestat’s imagined voice which sounded all too real in my mind. If my coldness was disconcerting to Armand, of all people, I decided it was time to remedy the situation somewhat. 

“You okay, mister?” A heavily-accented Italian voice took me from my short reverie. Beside me was a dark-eyed little man laden with a tray of bread that he’d unloaded from a wagon. He peered at me through the wind-driven snow, his whole mien radiating kindness and concern. I looked at the letters stenciled on the door where the man had inserted a key. I’d managed to get to 22nd and Broadway and, hardly aware of it, I’d followed him down the alley beside the venerable Glenham Hotel where he was making a delivery. 

“I am quite alright, thank you,” I said, assisting him by opening the door he’d been struggling to unlock while balancing his tray. He bade me good evening and went inside; such ordinary encounters often turned me from a potential victim. Behind me the horse that drew the bread wagon shifted, and when I turned, I saw the animal regarding me with calm eyes, his handsome head wreathed in the cloud of his breath. I went and pressed the chilled skin of my face against the creature’s warm and fragrant neck and stood awhile listening to the creak of his harness as he shifted along with the deep steady beating of his heart. 

After a time, I left the area and found my way to the Bowery. In the deep shadows afforded beneath the Third Avenue El that traversed the thoroughfare, there were shops that sold knick knacks, moving picture houses, cheap lodging, eating houses, saloons, dance halls and assorted other businesses that the newspapers were pleased to call the ‘resorts of degenerates and fairies’. Prostitution was rife, assaults common and in such places it was easy enough to find the evil-doers, those who find it profitable to take advantage of the weak and the desperate.

Sometimes people like that forget that there is always someone more dangerous than they are.

**(Armand)**

Winter passed slowly and the spring, such as it was, had settled in with miserable, chilly rain and clammy mists. Louis, having moved from a long period of passive quietude now appeared more restive...more awake than he had been at any time since I had known him save those first few weeks before the debacle with Claudia.

He disliked the cold as much as he always had but seemed determined to ignore it, and he set about engaging us in a flurry of activity. He wanted a box at the Metropolitan Opera, no mean feat with ordinary tickets running in high demand. The Met had been founded several decades earlier by the newly wealthy American industrialists looking for an alternative for the old established Academy of Music. The subscribers of the limited boxes at the Academy characterized New York’s old money, the highest strata of New York society and they had been less than enthused at opening their ranks to these upstarts, despite the enormous wealth they represented.

I was glad enough to arrange this for him--to see him so engaged kindled a secret, nascent flame of hope in my breast that perhaps this signaled some change between us. I pushed my earlier misgivings regarding the reasons behind this sudden flare of activity as far back as I was able and allowed myself to become caught up in his enthusiasm. He spoke often of the engagement of Arturo Toscanini as head conductor and the luminous list of singers that would appear, particularly the marvelous Feodor Chaliapin. Louis enjoyed listening to Chaliapin on the gramophone, entranced with Chaliapin’s expressive, rich _basso cantante_.

One evening he invited me to go along with him to the American Museum of Natural History, gaining entrance for the two of us via a side door on Central Park West. He’d bribed an enterprising and underpaid guard to allow us in, amply compensating him and his fellows to leave us alone for the duration. We spent the entire evening absorbed in the collections and I was rather astounded by his interest and knowledge in natural history and astronomy.

We shared an interest in the moving pictures and devoured them with a singular voraciousness. Each new innovation in the early days of film caused an almost unwilling sense of marvel in me; such things would have appeared like the darkest of magics to my earlier self. Louis had a better grasp on such things: I don't think he’d ever had a superstitious bone in his body and he always seemed to take the astonishing leaps of technology that we were witness to in stride, as though he had been expecting such marvels all along.

Although much of this activity was at his instigation, Louis’s moods ran hot and cold--I sometimes suspected this to be a tactic to keep me off balance, though there were still those disconcerting moments when I would deliberately read him to see if that was indeed his aim. When I’d done so earlier in the evening, I didn’t know whether to be relieved or perturbed when there had be no trace of myself in his thoughts at all, only an unsettling sense of his mind wandering far from where he sat in his customary chair close to the hearth. I settled into the other chair to wait for his attention to turn back to the present.

It wasn’t long. A flutter of eyelids and he was back. “Do you remember the night we spent time at the Uffizi? We discussed Bronzino’s works and I asked you how you came to know so much about his technique. It seemed such a detailed knowledge...intimate one might say.”

“You asked if I had known him,” I said. 

He nodded and reached to tuck a stray lock of hair behind one ear. “You mentioned your maker was a master painter. Is he still alive, Armand?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

“Curiosity. I am curious about many things, though it has been rare that I am given any insights.” He smiled then, but the smile did not reach his eyes “Do you see him at all? Letters, perhaps?”

I gazed at him for a long moment, weighing what was behind his questions.

“It’s not a trap, you know,” he went on with a trace of annoyance, “You don't have to tell me anything if you prefer not to.”

There was nothing wistful in his tone, but in his eyes I saw resignation quickly hidden by the familiar opaque blandness he armored himself with.

“I have not seen or heard from him in four hundred years, give or take.” I heard myself saying the words, but I had not been prepared for the lance of pain that pierced me as the words left my mouth. I held myself very still, letting the old hurt wash through me. Louis’s eyes softened somewhat.

“Such a long time,” he said meditatively. “How do you know he still lives?”

It was time, I thought when his maneuverings suddenly became crystal clear. I had underestimated him yet again, mistaking his prolonged sorrow and his nearly mortal weakness for much more of a distraction of the mind than it was. He had skillfully pinned me into this spot.

“I know it the same way that you know Lestat still lives,” I said softly. “If he were gone, I would feel it. What’s left of my heart would shrivel and die.”

TBC


	3. The Protection of Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuing exploration - Louis muses on Armand and his questions continue to multiply; what answers he has managed to glean give him some insight, but it may be too little too late..

**(Louis)**

His admission did not surprise me--had I not been reaching to understand the sensation of insistent knowledge that I should have realized all along? Mired in grief for so many years, I had been insensate to nearly any sort of stimulus, reacting only when pushed and then with a sort of mindless absence. I have only fractured memories of the first ten or so years after Claudia’s destruction.

Armand had offered a very small piece of information though I suppose for him the admission had been difficult. I understood that he’d done so as a deflection of my mention of the conversation in Florence, but I believe that his reply had opened him to emotions long buried-- I have not seen many cracks in his smooth façade, but he must not have expected the emotions that he had obviously kept locked away. 

His face crumpled inward for a space of moments and he stared mutely at me, bewildered at his sudden and unexpected weakness. I stood to draw him into an embrace without being entirely certain why; perhaps it was because he’d finally answered a question honestly. He is usually many paces ahead of me but he had not had time to glean my thoughts and I had clearly taken him by surprise. His arms came around my back, but tentatively. I put a hand to the back of his head and he relaxed against my shoulder.

This reaction had touched me, yet that was only part of it; he was a good teacher, you see, and though he had been careful, I had been hard done by--sometimes I was able to forget for a while, but I had little in the way of forgiveness in me. I stored the information away for later use should it become necessary, and we went together to my bedroom and there undressed; he pressed up against me as I drew the coverlet over our bodies. There was nothing lascivious about his movement, rather, his attitude was child-like. This continued, bewildered behavior convinced me more than anything that his distress was authentic; indeed, if he had wept, I would have likely been suspicious because that was a reaction he would have deemed appropriate for dismay. My thumb circled his shoulder and he relaxed into a doze that further convinced me; sleep is one way of hiding from things one does not wish to ponder. His breaths slowed and it was not long before they grew shallow, then barely detectable; he was sleeping soundly and I felt my own muscles relax: this was a rare thing and I freed my mind somewhat.

Armand possesses an inordinate store of patience; when he realized that the arts were among the few things that distracted me, we traveled across Europe to view exquisite paintings, the most beautiful sculptures, and architecture that defied description. We listened to soaring, beautiful music played by the finest musicians, sung by the great singers of the time. We visited libraries filled with books, magnificently bound volumes, knowledge and poetry and so much of the vast imagination of mankind living in the pages of each and every one. He strove to breathe some semblance of life back into me and when these things failed to divert me, our strange, breathless couplings gave me some sense of tenuous connection.

Then, of course, there is his mind. His mind gift is remarkable and his skill in wielding such power is quite astonishing. It took me a long while to understand just how adept he is, piecing together events a little at a time to see and understand how any reluctance I felt when he drew me in would fade, washed away in a tide of my need for companionship or expiation or at the very least forgetfulness. A master of redirection, he could and did turn my questions around easily, answering partially and then moving toward subjects related, yet unimportant. I had even come to believe that he had been able to force my interest for what I described regarding our travels at least until my natural curiosity and love for these things re-awakened. I did not have much in the way of knowledge regarding our kind but I had already come to understand quite well that secrecy must somehow be paramount.As Armand’s manipulations became clearer to me, I wanted to break from him, yet I lingered, locked in a curious lassitude similar in some ways to what I had experienced in those dreadful days when my passivity allowed Claudia to unleash her rage upon Lestat which led, ultimately, to her demise.

“It was not only passivity on your part, Louis.” Armand murmured, roused now from his doze. I shook myself mentally. “Why would you think all that occurred was your fault? Certainly Lestat had both hands in it and for what? To keep you by his side and never mind that he could easily have given you what you asked him for instead of forcing you to remain out of guilt. Lestat is many things, but subtle is not among them.” Armand shifted from where he was lying and lifted his head to look into my face. “Just because what he did was completely over the top doesn’t make the act less manipulative, does it?”

His eyes are quite beautiful, a luminous golden brown. They radiate a certain warmth, an offer of understanding and compassion. The offer, I had found, had little behind it aside from the prodigious gift of persuasion. There is compassion, at least I think there is, but it’s distant…more like the memory of what compassion might mean. His talk of manipulation on Lestat’s part may have been astute, but that might have been because no one understands the word better than he does.

“While I am pleased that you think I have beautiful eyes, your cynical codicil wounds me,” he said with a theatrical sigh. My moments of assured mental privacy had passed and his eyes went from soft to avid in the space of seconds. The bedclothes pooled around his waist as he sat up and shifted his position to better watch me. I remained recumbent.

“How dreadful of me to vex you so with my unbridled thoughts.” 

He nodded as though in agreement, his expression thoughtful. “I forgive you, then. You have not answered my question, however,” 

“I am not inclined to discuss Lestat with you,” I said mildly.

“Your loyalty is admirable.” There was the merest touch of acid in his tone and in order to distract him from realizing the odd flutter of triumph I felt, I ran my hand lazily across my chest. I suppose I am not above my own forms of manipulation.

His eyes tracked the movement and a little smiled played at his lips. “I think you would like to discuss Lestat at length, but only on your own terms. Would that be accurate?”

“I could say the same of you. Your fascination with him seems boundless. What is it you want of me, Armand? To renounce him as the devil in my life? Shall I say I feel nothing when you say his name? You would know it for the lie it was one way or another, would you not?”

A fleeting shadow crossed his features, a cloud crossing the moon. He blinked and the smile that followed was chilly. “Boundless,” he muttered. “Much like my craving for you, _caro_.”

**(Armand)**

I did not care to be taken unaware as Louis had again managed to do. Can he catch an unguarded thought? I didn’t think he could, but how else to explain it? It had happened with more frequency of late. Very few had managed it before and those that had were old ones. Ah, but Louis is endlessly intriguing, able to catch me off guard in a hundred small ways. He feigns utter disdain for me, but there is emotion behind it and occasionally something close to affection. Louis’s provocative, languorous movements were certainly calculated, but his responsiveness beneath me some time later was not: it never is, not when he decides to give in to his impulses. What bliss when he does, his surrender is sweet to me, so sweet; his steep breaths are music, his taut flesh irresistible and thus he breaks me and I am helpless with need for him. This need of him is a weakness that he can, and occasionally does, exploit and he plays the hands he has been dealt with a good deal of skill: he is not your ordinary gambler but then, neither am I.

Whatever I had wanted from him when he arrived in Paris with his delicate little fledgling was no more; he had changed and so had I. I had thought he would be my guide into the new century. In retrospect, that fiction would have held up no better than the ones I had fashioned after the irrevocable events in Paris. He was aware of subterfuge on my part, but not the extent of it. Lying beside him in the dark, I’d steeled myself for questions or recriminations, but he remained quiet, even pliant to my embrace, laying his smooth cheek against my hair.

Near dawn, he stirred, pulling the blankets over his shoulder. “I don’t have it in me to give you what you want from me. It’s not the breadth of your deceptions though you must have an idea of just how much injury you have caused not only to me but to yourself. You have your reasons, I am sure.” He settled his long body against mine and I shuddered, speechless with the pain welling up so that I felt I would choke. 

“Louis. No more. Please, no more,” I said in the merest whisper. Perhaps he had not heard me, for he continued inexorably

“I find myself again entangled with someone who refuses intimacy by being unable to trust.”

How can anyone so beautiful be the cause of such grief? I felt an agitation of spirit but my limbs were growing heavy. “Please.” I murmured.

He drew me close and I wound my arms around his neck. “In truth, Armand, I don't know if I had anything left to give after Paris,” his voice was soft, drifting. “I saw something in you, but for the life of me, I no longer remember what it was.” He pressed his cold lips to mine and I lost him to the death sleep.

TBC


	4. A Corrupting Influence (Unintended Consequences)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Louis and Armand leave New York and appear to be getting along.

****

****

(Louis)

The opera season turned out to be entertaining but less than stellar with spotty performances from even the most talented of singers. As extraordinary as their gifts might be, they are still human with voices that become strained or bodies which weaken from illnesses both grave and inconsequential. And, like vampires, they are often distracted by the drama of their varied proclivities and emotional entanglements. The entertainment stemmed from the audience reactions both to the performances as well as to the spectators. The appearance of two unattached and unknown males seated in one of the boxes caused no end of speculation and gossip. 

Armand was exceedingly amused by the attention, and in spite of his youthful appearance, he assumed the role of spokesman with ease as he had been doing all along, inventing appropriate details to go with our assumed names and impeccable backgrounds. Some of the details were those he’d used when we roamed Europe. For myself, I was less uncomfortable with all of it than might be imagined. There are times when the facade of the polite gentleman is the perfect mask and I was well-versed in that role. 

For his part, Armand played the role of the young gentleman of means to the hilt, flirting with the ladies, young and old and the aura of joie de vivre he created during the intermissions and at the occasional appearances at the soirees to which we had been invited became a staple of the gossip column. It was yet another unexpected side to him that I had not anticipated.<

On the evenings when the performances were lacking that specific magic which entwines the audience directly into the experience of the music, my mind would wander and as it so often did of late, I would think of Lestat. He would have adored the attention--the visitors to the box; the extravagant gifts of fruit and flowers, champagne and oysters and other delicacies that accompanied invitations to dinners, ballrooms, and outings of all descriptions. Certainly, he would have handled it with a good deal more aplomb than I. Not for the first time, not for the hundredth, I wondered where he was. 

Thus we passed late spring and most of the summer amicably enough. I made no references to the tensions that had come to the fore in the early spring and Armand was content to let it drop. If he was following my mind at all, he was at pains to do so undetected and he rarely slipped in saying aloud anything that we had not actually spoken of. 

By the end of the decade, Armand was showing signs of restlessness. “We should leave New York, Louis. I tire of the idle, vicious gossip at these dinners and galas.” 

“No one forces you to attend,” I pointed out. “And you seemed right at home at Mrs. Vanderbilt’s masquerade.” 

He gave me a half-hearted glare, but then shrugged. “That was months ago. We’re due for a change of scenery, don’t you think? It’s all I can do not to tear the throat from that simpering Coraline and her dreadful bully of a husband.” I felt a moment of complete simpatico for this particular admission but made no comment one way or the other. 

“Where did you have in mind?” 

“I thought Atlantic City for a while. You seemed to enjoy our visits there,” he said offhandedly. 

He was correct---I liked the specific energy to be found in a place where people gather from near and far; most were strangers to one another which contributed greatly to our anonymity. We had acquaintances there, but due to the more nefarious nature of some of their activities, they tended to allow us our privacy as we allowed them theirs.  
He took my nod as agreement and went on, “I thought we might work our way south from there should boredom should set in.” 

I thought it curious that he should say that. It was at that time that again began to feel that little mind tickle that had been dormant for some months. It arrived with glimpses of New Orleans, changed yet still quite recognizable. I was reasonably certain it was one of our kind, perhaps one who had felt my own reception of these random communications and responded occasionally. The idea of going south appealed to me, though I cannot say that I was in any hurry. I noticed Armand staring fixedly at me; I’d been off in my own thoughts for longer than I’d realized. 

“Whatever you like, Armand,” I said simply. 

We left New York with little fanfare, leaving behind most of what we’d collected during our stay, bringing only a valise for each of us more because such a thing was expected when one took a journey than for need of clothing. Atlantic City was quite to Armand’s taste as it turned out and we remained longer than first anticipated. 

For the sake of appearance, Armand leased a suite of rooms in the venerable Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel, but we did not rest there during the day, having found a secure little house several miles inland. The countryside was made up of rolling farmland and the house itself was sheltered by a stand of tall, soft-needled white pines, virtually hidden from the rough country road. Each evening we would drive to the hotel in the beautiful Meisenhelder roadster he’d bought, usually with me at the wheel. Armand loved the car but had little interest in understanding how it operated, much preferring the role of passenger, watching the scenery unfold and engaging in conversation. 

I found it puzzling that Armand’s curiosity always seemed to gravitate to the edges of things. He loved the look of the car and enjoyed riding in it, but that was as far as it went. The same went for other advancing technological wonders. 

An example – Armand enjoyed cinema immensely but had little interest in how it all worked, how such a marvel came together. I’d come in on one occasion after making the acquaintance of the gentleman who ran the enormous projectors at the Strand Theatre on Broadway, the movie house we’d frequented when we’d been living in New York. I spoke at length regarding how it worked, the soporific heat that radiated from the bright lamp and the extraordinary coordination and timing of the gentleman in switching from one projector to the other whenever a reel change had to be made and his careful threading of the next reel to be shown. Armand listened to me, his eyes calm and wide. He made no remarks and though this was nothing out of the ordinary, it became clear to me after a little while that he was listening only because he sensed my own excitement. It was something he fed on with as much avidity as the blood that sustained us. I’d said as much at the time, feeling a stirring that had not come to me for a long while. He only smiled. 

“The showmanship displayed does not come with any surprises for me, as you might imagine; it is, after all, a type of theater for a modern age. As for the technicalities, for me, it may just as well be magic, Louis. I prefer to enjoy it as such,” he said, “And is it so dreadful that your pleasure in these discoveries of yours is a joy to me?” 

It was not the answer that I had expected; in point of fact, I was bemused to realize that I’d been gearing up for an argument of some kind and that his benign remark had deflated me somewhat. “For someone I know to be so intelligent, I am mystified by your lack of curiosity,” I said, still nettled.  
He shrugged. “I am curious about many things, Louis. This does not happen to be one of them. “A better question might be why you find it so bothersome.” The conversation came back to me as we approached the glow of Atlantic City and I glanced over at him to find that he was watching me with that irritatingly knowing look in his eye.

********

(Armand)

I loved to watch him drive just as I loved to see him become incensed by what he refers to as my intrusions into his thoughts. Much of that time I am not even trying to do so; he is often easy to read and his obstinate refusal to allow me to instruct him on how to close off his surface thoughts at very least is as puzzling to me as my so-called incuriosity regarding mechanical things is to him. It does not occur to him that he is far more interesting to me than those things that absorb him. Seeing his absorption captures my interest and holds it. That he is irritated with me also catches my interest...and it stirs both hope and sorrow within me. The sorrow is the stronger these days. He is restless and he is torn and there are times when I can clearly feel the push and pull of his emotions towards me.  
I have rarely come across someone so stubborn and so oppositional; he comes alive in an argument and the more heated it is the better he likes it. In past years he was cold and remote. He has become much less so since the dawn of this new century.

“You’ll miss the turn if you keep looking over at me.” I said. His brows pulled together in a slight frown, but before he could say anything I continued, “Did you know there is a car following behind us?”

The frown smoothed out. “What of it?”

“Did you know it follows us every evening when we leave the house?”

“No, I didn’t know that. We go into Atlantic City each evening. It’s not a stretch to think others might do the same thing,” he said crossly. “If you are trying to tell me something, please be so kind as to enlighten me because I am not gleaning the significance. Are you saying they are deliberately following us?”

I gave an indolent shrug. “I think they might be, yes.”

“Again. What of it? You don’t seem overly concerned. If you thought they were some sort of threat, no doubt you would have already seen to the problem.”

Really, I love Louis in this sort of querulous mood—it’s clear he draws some inner satisfaction from it and I much prefer it over the decades of cold, passive acquiescence. Having planted this new seed in his mind might have the result of a more colorful evening ahead than his intent gambling persona provides and that’s saying something.“I thought it worth mentioning, that’s all. Mr. Johnson’s companions are quite varied, yes? Perhaps he’s become aware that you are usually just somewhat ahead of the house as far as winnings are concerned.”

It was Louis’s turn to shrug. “Not as far as the law of averages is concerned.”

“The law of averages pertains to games played fairly. When has a gambling establishment of any kind ever played fair?”

He nodded in agreement. “True enough. Why have us followed then, and clearly with the intent of not alerting us? Not intimidation, surely.”

“I shouldn’t think so – at least not yet. It may be time I looked into that,” I said, pleased that he’d begun thinking about it.

“We’re no threat to Nucky’s more profitable illegitimate enterprises. His protectorate seems geared more to those ends; certainly bootlegging whiskey clears as much or more cash than the gambling operation. We have no involvement in smuggling operations.”

We were approaching the narrow bridge that crossed one of many waterways that connected the bays out to the Atlantic. I turned in the seat and noted the headlights that had appeared behind us.

“You say I am ahead of the house; I can tell you at this moment in time, the House has taken in more than it’s given out on my account,” Louis continued. “Nucky knows this just as he knows I drop a lot of money his way. He also believes that, in the end, the house always wins, so if I am temporarily ahead of the game for a while, he’s content to wait it out. The money makes no difference to me: it’s the game itself – he may or may not know that as well. House or not, some of the players have their own brands of wisdom to absorb.”

“Nucky, is it? I had no idea that you’d become so friendly with Mr. Johnson.,” I said to cover my surprise. I should know better than to underestimate him. He made no sign at all as to whether or not he realized that he’d caught me off guard. “So maybe it’s not Johnson’s people…but someone is interested enough to keep tabs on us. I see them behind us, by the way.”

He’d slowed to make the left that would take us eventually to our hotel, turning his head to look behind us. “Could be anyone,” he said, shifting and making the turn.

“It’s them,” I said. The spotlight on the side of the car is rectangular and it stutters on the bumps.” He glanced at me, one eyebrow raised and I laughed. “I notice things, Louis. You’d be surprised.”

He pulled around to one of the rear entrance to the hotel and we got out of the car. Louis took the chit from the valet and we mounted the steps, “Not too surprised.” he muttered.

We passed through the various salons on the ground level and out through the front doors; the evening was warm and the offshore breeze very light - Louis liked to sit on the wide veranda upon our arrival each evening, watching the throng passing on the boardwalk for a while until he was moved to hunt.

“I’m surprised you did not wait for our escort out back,” he said, seating himself on one of the deck chairs.

I gave him a withering stare. “Simple enough to pick them out if they come near. Why? Has the thirst come upon you so soon?”

He made no answer beyond a trenchant little smile. His eyes glittered with reflected electric light and I took the time to notice that his hair, clipped short for the evening, had begun to curl loosely in the humid, salt-scented air. I found that I had become uncomfortably aroused. 

He looked sharply at me. "And don't think I don't know what you're up to," he said, tapping his temple. "If you want me, just say it for the love of Christ. I’ll meet you at Clicquot in an hour or so.” He rose and buttoned his jacket, smoothing it over his hips and straightening his tie. The slim cut of the trousers and jacket were perfectly suited to his build, adding to the heady rush of arousal. Without another word he made his way back through the hotel doors we’d come through earlier. His brusqueness may have been left over from his desire to argue with me earlier or it may have been because he prefers not to discuss his feeding habits in any capacity, but somehow I didn’t think it had to do with either of those things.

****

~~~~~

When I arrived at Clicquot I told the _maître d’_ that I was waiting for another party; he escorted me to a table where I was almost immediately joined by a young lady who had expectations of, at very least, a few drinks while I waited for Louis. The cabaret and the bar were considered ‘feeder’ rooms; the real action was in the back where the games of chance never ended.

The girl, who gave her name as Vivian, was sweet-faced and on the demure side for one of the club girls. Beneath her acquiescent demeanor, she was somewhat nervous, though after a few sips of her drink she calmed somewhat. For a wonder she did not comment on my youthful looks, nor did she press me for any personal details, instead leading meaningless but enjoyable conversation with surprising ease.

“I’ve seen you here before,” Vivian said. “Where is your friend?”

“He’ll be along soon,” I told her. “He was meeting someone for an early dinner.” She nodded and looked past my shoulder with her earlier air of nervousness. I realized she was looking at the floor manager. I signaled for another round of drinks and smiled at her. “We’ll be retiring to the tables when he arrives. I would be very pleased if you would accompany us.”

Her shoulders relaxed and she smiled back. “The pleasure would be all mine.” She gave a little nod to the floor manager and he shifted his attention to one of the other girls. I thought idly that I’d pay him a visit later on. Louis showed up a half an hour later; Vivian’s eyes went soft at the sight of him, pink and tranquil from his recent and clearly heavy feed. If I’d looked around, I knew I would see more than one patron with the same look in their eyes.

He was clearly still feeling the effects of the swoon, his green eyes hazed and warm as he approached the table. I introduced Vivian and Louis made a formal bow, taking her hand and brushing her knuckles with his lips. She blushed prettily and Louis turned to me, leaning down and kissing both my cheeks in the French manner; the scent of blood and the heat of his skin made me slightly dizzy. He flashed a conspiratorial smile and then turned to offer his arm to Vivian.

Vivian was fond of blackjack and I supplied the money while she played a shoe with spectacularly bad results. This was not a surprise, but I didn’t hold it against her. It was her job, after all, and it wasn’t as though I didn’t know how it worked. I gave her another fifty dollars and we parted ways, though I noted that she followed both mine & Louis’s movements through the evening. Mine, more than Louis’s, because once he ensconced himself at one of several poker games underway he stayed there for the evening.

I wandered the room, spending time at the craps table and the roulette wheel, but not too much time passed before I was drawn to Louis’s table. I loved watching him when he was occupied thus. He played because he was enchanted with calculating odds, both numerical and social. This is not to say he didn’t play to win; he absolutely did. I secretly believed he was so good at it because the money didn’t mean anything either way. He wasn’t a gambler in the sense that mortals are, playing out of avarice or desperation. He loved being able to work out who would win by combining behavioral observation with calculating odds based on card-counting quickly enough to win the hand.

I had advanced the notion once that card-counting was cheating. “Certainly it’s an advantage to be able to do so,” he’d said in his measured way. “But it’s not as though I’m the only one with the ability. I could do it when I was mortal, you know.” He’d sounded vaguely offended, yet he had smiled a rare genuine smile when I burst into laughter at his defensiveness. There are times that he is nowhere near as proper as he prefers to appear to the world at large.

At that moment he glanced once again at his dismal hand and folded. Rising, he pocketed the evening’s winnings and walked toward me followed by mostly good-natured catcalls. I caught a strong thought from a bewhiskered gentleman at the table but before I could focus, Louis had taken my elbow and steered me toward the exit at the back of the club.

“Louis, that man who was across from you I believe he covets your winnings,” I said pulling back from is grip.

“Doesn’t matter,” Louis said. “Don’t tell me you’re worried.”

“No,” I said, “Thirsting.” To my surprise, he laughed.

“Well, then...by all means, draw him out. And that bully of a floor manager from the front--or shall I?” He released my arm and, faster than I would have believed possible, he had me pushed against the wall, his mouth on mine, rough and insistent. He disengaged and I looked into his eyes. “What’s got into you?” I asked, pushing him back.

“Isn’t this what you want?” he said. His tone was curious. “Isn’t this what you have been contemplating since we left the house?” His eyes were green flame. 

“I think you know what I want from you,” I said. “This? I’ve had this from you. Or have you forgotten?”

“Not at all. We’ve taken each often, haven’t we? You’ve bled me, you’ve fucked me, looked into my head, lied to me, begged me to take you, rough or tender. A corrupting influence, but you’ve taught me a lot about myself. The unintended consequences, yes?”

“Louis…”

“Shhh. Don’t disappoint me with regrets I know you don't have. Have your drink and come to our suite at the Marlborough. We can risk a day there; I have a story to tell you.”

TBC


	5. We Are Never Deceived, We Deceive Ourselves

**(Narrative) ******

Louis lay quite still in the darkened room, listening to the sounds of mortals rising from the hotel veranda below and beyond, from the busy Atlantic City boardwalk. The evening had cooled considerably, but he was not inclined to close the window, soothed as he was by the salt air and the low, regular thunder of the broad Atlantic rollers, driven forward by a storm still far off the coast. In any case, his body still held heat from the blood of his earlier victims. He burrowed in beneath the sumptuous bedclothes provided by the hotel.

It was unlike him to feed so heavily but he’d told himself that once he’d decided to deal with the two men that Armand had pointed out earlier that evening, there was no choice but to take them both. He’d left them in their car, unconcerned that they would likely be found sooner rather than later. They’d not been drained dry, not left mysteriously bloodless. Pristine corpses, no marks upon the bodies thanks to the paradoxical healing properties of his blood, no signs of violence often all too apparent in murders in the area. When he’d left them, they looked like they fallen asleep. It was all too easy, as Lestat had occasionally remarked all those years ago.

Louis rolled to his side to face the window, noting a shift in the offshore breeze. It was Lestat who’d pointed out Louis’s ability to dazzle mortals without trying, without, in fact, his own knowledge, back then anyway. Louis had rejected the information, he thought with a pang. Mulish, stiff-necked, judgmental fool. The pain that was so often around his heart of late deepening and blooming redly, had become a wound that would not heal. Louis breathed the cool air in deeply, waiting for the misery to subside.

If Lestat had been the one to point out this gift of his, it had been Armand who had patiently taught him how to make use of it, choosing moments when Louis was less apt to be argumentative or stubborn. A simple thing, Louis thought, for one with such a prodigious mind gift. This last thought triggered another. Had Armand pushed him to kill the two men that had been following them? Why? Conversely, he wondered if he’d gone mad, seeing bad intent in everything Armand said or did. It seemed to be a pattern for him and he found the thought disagreeable in the extreme.

Louis let his mind wander, hoping to collect himself from the uneasiness that had beset him. 

The calm, almost eerie patience Armand exhibited so often was in itself seductive and from that, he reasoned that it may well have been another deception, another manipulation - but if it was, Louis allowed his own complicity. Had he not welcomed the deceptions, perhaps even instigated them? And here he was, decades later, still clinging to a creature who had flayed him quite cruelly, very obviously to meet his own desires. And yet...he loved the creature. He loved Armand and he hated him.

A low, frustrated groan escaped him and Louis flung the bedclothes back. He sat up, clasping his knees to his chest. Did he have a story to tell? He was no longer certain. The flare of anger had diminished and whatever surety he’d felt earlier had vanished along with it.

**(Armand) ******

I took my time after Louis’s somewhat dramatic exit, seeing off the floor manager who struck such fear into the hearts of the club girls and then returning to dance awhile with the lovely Vivian. Upon returning to the suite of rooms we kept at the Marlborough, I found myself somewhat wary at the spectacle of Louis naked in front of the open window, a sharp sea wind whipping his black hair behind him like a banner. I locked the door and went past him, first closing the window and drawing the curtains. 

“What’s got into you?” I took his arm and drew him along to the bed. His skin was like ice. He followed passively. I didn’t like that either.

“Nothing’s got into me. Yet,” he said lasciviously. I found neither his tone nor his manner alluring in the least and he knew it. Grunting, I pressed him down onto the bed and covered him with the bedclothes. “What is it, Armand? Pretty, pretty Armand. Don’t care for the view?” Again, the false leering.

“I don’t know what I’ve done this time to invite your scorn, Louis. Would you care to enlighten me?” He abandoned the falsity and stared coolly at me for a moment. “You say you don’t know,” he said at last, “But how can I tell for certain? Never mind. I know the answer already. I can’t tell for certain, can I?”

“Is this a pathetic attempt at craftiness?” I was becoming irritated. “No. You couldn’t tell. You’ll just have to take my word for it.” I said, shedding my clothes. He moved the blankets back and I got into the bed beside him, flinching when he pressed his chilled flesh to mine, still very warm from the blood I’d stolen. This is where it gets tricky; he was clearly peevish about something and in moods like this anything at all might happen.

I said nothing for a time, just allowing him time to work through whatever was bothering him and gradually his skin warmed and his muscles relaxed.

“You had a story for me, Louis?” I asked at length. 

“I did. I don’t remember now what I wanted to tell you,” came his drowsy answer. He stirred and rolled over to look at me.

“You don’t forget anything.” I scoffed.

“Alright, then. Let’s just say it lost whatever import I thought it had earlier.” He propped his head upon his hand and reached to brush the hair from my eyes. “There is something, however.”

“Oh, yes?” I was grateful that my tone was completely even. I was still desperately attempting to gauge his mood, seeing that it had changed several times in the few minutes since I’d entered the room.

“There is no longer any need to worry about being followed, at least by the two that were behind us earlier,” he said with an attempt at smugness that he could not quite pull off.

“Both of them?”

“You needn’t sound so incredulous,” he said, apparently nettled at my amusement. “It was simpler that way. Oh, and I don’t think they had anything to do with Nucky. They had a small enterprise of their own, mostly relieving the more fortunate of their winnings.”

“Probably lucky it wasn’t Nucky who caught on to them.” I snorted. They very likely did not suffer much at Louis’s hands. 

“They didn’t,” he said, exactly as if I’d spoken aloud. Another slip, though I am not sure he realized it. He looked into my eyes for a moment. “I confess it was a cold kill. I was thirsting and they were an opportunity. It’s not like I needed the money,” he made a vague gesture at our surroundings, “If I hadn’t been in my nightly murderous form, I would likely have just given it to them.” 

I was increasingly uncomfortable with the continued shift in his mood and the fact that I was having no small amount of trouble following his thoughts. I sat up, looking at him over my shoulder and he gave me a questioning look.

“Is there something wrong Louis?” 

“Wrong? Aside from the usual, no. Why do you ask?” He ran a finger lightly across my shoulder blade, and I gave an impatient shrug, recognizing with a pang that he was trying to deflect my question.

“You’re all over the place tonight. You leave the restaurant riding a high horse, off to kill a couple of low-level gangsters. I come back here to find you naked and half-frozen in front of a wide-open window and when I get you under a blanket you come out with the lewd propositions which, by the way, I find completely irritating. That’s immediately followed by accusations of deception, perhaps not entirely questionable, I suppose, but after so many years, tiresome- and then? An appearance by Louis the Lost Vampire. So which game would are you actually intent on playing tonight?”

He blinked at me, taken aback and momentarily at a loss for words.

“Well?”

“I had no idea you found me irritatingly lewd,” he said at last, flashing a rare smile. “I have, however, been told I can be trying at times.”

“Understatement.” I said, with an unwilling smile of my own. I let him pull me back down beside him and allowed myself a tremor of pleasure at the simple acceptance of his arms about me.

“I felt it again, that mind touch,” he said at length. “It’s disconcerting. The random timing. I feel like whoever it is doesn’t realize I can hear him.”

“Him?”

“Mmhmm. Male presence. Don’t know how I know it.”

“Could be he doesn’t know you are hearing him. Odd that you feel no familiarity.”

“He’s in New Orleans,” Louis said flatly. "I can see it sometimes in his thoughts."

“That would explain your agitation,” I said neutrally. It couldn’t be Lestat—Louis would not be able to hear him. Lestat is nothing if not clever though, damn him. Oh, damn him to hell. 

“Do you think he went back there?” His voice was as neutral as mine.

“How should I know? Anything is possible with him. You know that better than anyone, I should think.”

“No, I don’t think I do.” He said distantly. He tightened his arms and rolled atop me. “I don’t want to think about this any longer.” He said, his mouth meeting mine. 

He shatters me.


End file.
